1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to transport stream processing systems, and more particularly to a transport stream processing system that flexibly de-multiplexes a transport stream.
2. Description of the Related Art
As techniques for data compression and image processing rapidly improved, digital television with recording and playing back functions are becoming popular. In a conventional transport stream processing system, signals are transmitted as a series of packets that form a transport stream. The packets for generating the transport stream are referred to as transport stream packets.
Typically, the conventional transport stream processing system utilizes different dedicated hardware components to deal with different types of transport stream packets respectively for recording or playback functions. During a playback process, each transport stream packet contains information, such as a packet identifier (PID) value, data type or display information, to indicate which set of supplied control words needs to be employed as a current set of control words. Further, during a recording process, unlike the playback process, each transport stream packet is determined to be discarded or recorded according to the packet identifier value. Some extra information, such as decryption key information or start code information also needs to be transmitted via the control words allowing processing to be preformed on each transport stream packet. Because dedicated hardware is required, the use of different dedicated hardware architecturally sacrifices design flexibility and substantially increases manufacturing costs.
Therefore, a cost-effective and efficient integrated transport stream recording and playback system capable of processing transport stream packets respectively for recording and playback is desired.